


(Help me believe) He's not the real me

by terryh_nyan



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, Language, M/M, Missing Scene, One Shot, Pale Romance | Moirallegiance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-06
Updated: 2013-03-06
Packaged: 2017-12-04 12:00:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,759
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/710566
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/terryh_nyan/pseuds/terryh_nyan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><em>They're getting louder.</em><br/>Karkat receives a late night visit.</p>
            </blockquote>





	(Help me believe) He's not the real me

**Author's Note:**

> This was supposed to be the third one of the series, but the second one's being a real bitch to edit, so, yeah, have some GamKat pale romance. I recommend listening to the song "Animal I Have Become" by Three Days Grace if you haven't yet. It's like the Gamzee Anthem. Okay, I'll be off. Still not native, I apologise in advance for mistakes of sorts - and if you'll be so kind to point them out to me, I'll bake you a cake.  
> Hope you like it! (the fic not the cake)

_They’re getting louder._

 

When you first wake up, you’re pretty sure you weren’t supposed to. Not for at least a solid couple of hours. Instead, you don’t feel like you could’ve been slumbering for more than a few minutes.

Of course, it might be an impression.

~~_blood_ ~~

_Honk…_

Or, just like every fucking time something doesn’t add up, it might be the clown.

~~_BLOOD_ ~~

“Honk”.

Obviously.

Part of you is tempted to ask why the hell. To everything, really. Mainly, to the very presence of Gamzee Makara in your impromptu imitation of a bed. Also mainly, to the death grip of his chilly-as-fuck arms around every single inch of your torso like clingy octopus tentacles.

It is one big why the hell. _ ~~  
~~_

_~~break~~ _

“Aw, sorry, brother. Didn’t mean to all wake you up…”

Part of you, on the other hand, would just really like to go back to sleep.

Which has been incredibly hard to accomplish due to how unbelievably uncomfortable human beds are. Which is why you have every right and more to be pissed for having your effort being made vain.

So, yes, part of you would like to go back to sleep so much it physically hurts.

In a second, though.

“I’m going to be generous. No, I’m going to be magnanimous as a lord and give you five immensely long seconds to fill me in regarding: A) what the everlasting fuck are you doing in my scrap of personal space; B) as I try to get a few precious hours of sleep on this boring eternal road trip through nowhere in Nowhere Land. So you may start explaining any fucking time—”

_~~CRUSH~~_

“You might want to get your whisper on, brother… I think Kanaya’s all out there and, like, wouldn’t be happy to hear I’m around… or maybe she would but I’m motherfucking sure I wouldn’t…” his sing-song voice sounds very quiet, possibly even worried. It pains you to admit he has a point. You do not wish for a close encounter with a bloodthirsty _and_ armed Kanaya Maryam. Not now, not ever. You reluctantly lower your own voice to a more tolerable pitch.

“Are you trying to tell me the reason you’re currently glued to my body is because you’re hoping Kanaya would mistake us for one single overweight troll, were she to look for you here? Because that would honestly be one of the most fucking stupid things all of the life forms on this meteor and not would’ve ever had the chance to hear. You look hard enough, you can see the Furthest Ring laughing its ass right the fuck off”.

He doesn’t seem to be touched by your witty remarks in the slightest.

_~~rip~~ _

“Nah… just thought it’d be, you know, cool, to get my shuteye on”.

“Oh. Of course. Of fucking course you wanted to sleep and, in your vast royal capricious whimsy, decided the only nap-fitting place had to be the one that was already fucking taken. I should be skinning my knees on the cold hard ground in penance for having deprived you of your chosen resting space. Will you ever be able to forgive my insolence, you intrusive piece of purple load?”.

He gives you a reassuring, brotherly pat on the back.

_~~TEAR~~ _

“It’s all cool, brother. It’s chill. In a kind of literal sense too, I suppose…” he snuggles closer, peacefully oblivious to your rising hysteria or simply not caring at all. The fuckass.

“I already have a hard enough time deciphering all of your fucking nonsense when my eyes aren’t begging me to be shut like a smoking overheated laptop. Therefore I would be so, so very fucking _glad_ if you’d kindly bother to explain how the fuck are you expecting me to understand jack shit _now_ ”. You begin to wonder if avoiding a surprise encounter with Kanaya’s chainsaw is really worth keeping your voice down, after all. God knows you could use some old fashioned shouting to calm your nerves right now.

_~~kill~~ _

“Aah, I don’t even know… I guess what I’m trying to say here is… I could really use some motherfucking slime, you know”. That’s it. The clown is apparently feeling cryptic tonight – or today; seriously, like there’s a way of keeping track of time on this errant meteor. As far as you’re concerned, it’s night when you feel like sleeping. And the point is, you really felt like sleeping until you got your sides honked by a homesick clown with no intention of elaborating what he says.

Let’s be clear, it’s not like you don’t miss it, too. Home was simpler, home was comfier: home was where you never had to worry about strategy, or ectobiology, or the possibility of ever running out of slime. You’re still not sure where it came from, now that you think of it, but hell if it didn’t make everything easier, first of all getting some shuteye. You have no idea how humans manage with their cold, exposed beds.

You still don’t think it’s enough of an excuse to crawl under a guy’s covers in the middle of his well-earned rest and cling like a fucking mussel to a rock, though.

“Hate to break it to you, but I’m not some bloody slime factory. I’m just as out as everyone on this flying piece of rock”. Albeit your clarification, you do not manage to get rid of a chestful of buried clown face.

_~~MAKE~~ _

_~~them~~ _

_~~KNEEL~~ _

 “I wouldn’t have thought you were… since you don’t all look like one”.

You’re all, like, motherfucking about to retort with something especially crabby from your grouchiest vernacular.

Except the clown looks up – like he _actually_ wants to make sure you don’t resemble any kind of factory, what other nonsensical peaks is there to reach anymore? – and you can’t help but gulp hard. And wonder.

Because you might look like a factory – or what the hell ever – but he looks like a fucking _wreck_.

“Shit, Gamzee. When’s the last time you slept at all?”

In spite of the limited space, he manages to shrug.

He does not manage to speak.

“That’s really not fucking reassuring—”

 “Ssh”.

He puts a finger on your lips. You resist the urge to bite it off.

“Kanaya’s going to be the last of your heap of shithead problems. Hell, I will personally drag her here to chainsaw your ass to violet slices; I will knight the fuck up and carry that mass-murder weapon for her if you don’t tell me here and fucking now what in Jegus’ name is going on”. It’s not like you didn’t stop caring about keeping your voice down about a shrug ago, anyway.

You take a good look at him. God, does he look horrible. His makeup is smeared like a pencil drawing after a flood. It’s probably all over your shirt, black and white clown goo, and you couldn’t care less, because you can _see_ him now. He looks so worn out you can easily make out his features no matter how dark the room is. Everything’s so off about him you’re having a hard time wrapping your mind around the troll in front of you being your moirail.

But the eyes are the worst. God, his eyes. It might be a trick of the light – you better fucking hope it’s a trick of the light – if they look so… scary. Not the murderous scary, though, and at least there’s that. The scared-scary. The ‘I-cannot-believe-he’s-looking-at-me-like-that’ scary. Like an aloof coolkid deer that’s trying real hard to keep his pokerface on in front of the headlights. Somehow, you doubt the headlights in question are a cheap metaphor for Kanaya’s chainsaw. And, still somehow, you’re skeptic he’s playing it cool for the sake of appearances. “Fuck. Why didn’t you come to me sooner?”

He’s silent, this time. No shrugs, no honks. Not one motherfucking clue he’s even heard you at all. Because, apparently, it’s fine to blabber about Shangri-La and disturbing messiahs all day long, but giving a straight answer for once would be just too much of a miracle. He’s gone back to playing hide-and-seek against the fabric of your shirt, giving no explanation whatsoever.

Whimsical little shit.

You’d really like to grab him by the horns and shake him until he spills whatever it is he’s not spilling – not going to lie, you get pretty fucking alarmed when the weirdness surrounding your moirail tends to get over the usual level, but you’d like to look in the eye anyone who can say they can blame you. So, yes, you’re perfectly willing to shout abuse at him if it takes all of the sweep and a half of this ugly ass journey—

That is, until he starts snoring.

Soft, little, quiet clown snores. Sometimes a honk in between. You’re not sure whether it would be wiser to facepalm your nose bloody or just untangle from Gamzee’s hold and throw yourself into the endless blackness of the Furthest Ring. Spinning and spinning and spinning, alone in the blissfully clownless dark.

All you’re sure of is, you’re too fucking tired for this. You also know all too well you can’t crack a nut if said nut is jumping around dream bubbles, turning only a deaf, sleepy ear to your perfectly understandable anger.

Plus, the warmth from your moirail’s death grip is making you fuzzy and sleepy way faster than when you first fell asleep. Nobody can blame you if you’re the one snuggling closer, this time. It’s a really comfortable death grip.

Mind it, it’s not over. You’re going to make him talk, one way or another; hell, you’re even going to bring in Terezi and her disconcerting ways of persuasion of the witnesses if it comes down to it. Even if it turns out to be just the whim of the moment – fucking great, you say. But he’s going to tell you, period. Because then, what is even the point of being moirails if he can show up looking like that and still not trust you to listen to a word?

But you’re so, so tired. God, your eyelids are heavy. For a moment, it feels just like being back in your pod, surrounded by slime and coziness and all that is nice in the world, and you allow yourself to let everything slip away for a few precious moments.

You suppose you can bury the hatchet and, just this once, give the clown what he wants.

Which, really, isn’t it the fucking story of your life.

 

_They’re getting louder…_


End file.
